Get What You REALLY want. (Why problem solving doesn’t work.)

Makena: Hello, everyone. 

Gigi: Hello. Welcome back. 

Makena: Welcome to another episode. We have a really fun topic today that comes up a lot in our work with people. I feel like it’s really this “aha” moment for people. When you say it, it’s like the lights turn on, and they go, “Oh my gosh, I never looked at it that way.”

Gigi: Yeah.

Makena: We have this line—or you have this line—that you’ve said for a long time, which is, “Don’t solve your problem; take on a new challenge,” and that new challenge is going for what you want.

I’m curious, first of all, how did you come up with this before we really describe what it means? How did you start to see that fixating on problems instead of going for what they want?

Gigi: Early on, when I started coaching people and leading trainings, I would do an interview process. In that process, what I noticed was a pattern with people. When we have challenges or problems, that’s where all of our attention goes. When we have that pain, we’re trying to solve the problem all the time. 

Through the interview process, I started to see that if I tried to get in there and help people solve the problem, we just went deeper and deeper into the problem. There was no way of solving it because their thinking was fixated on the problem. 

Out of that, I naturally started shifting their attention to something else, which is what do they want. When we would shift to that, all of a sudden, as you said, they would be out of their heads, and then they’d be into, “Oh yeah, what do I want?” 

Taking them in that direction, when they would look at the problem again, it was from a completely different perspective and a bigger view. Then the problem didn’t seem so big, and they actually started to focus on what they wanted. 

I would say, “Let’s get a bigger problem or a new problem,” and really that is, “What do you want?” There’s inspiration and energy there. The problem has energy, and that brings us to it, or we can say, “What do I want?” Out of doing that, it’s also energy, but it’s the energy of inspiration, tapping into our desire and what we want.

Makena: That was hugely my experience. We had that turning point moment when you supported me in Costa Rica, and we’ve told that story in previous episodes. 

I was so fixated on the problems of “What am I going to do in my career?” “How do I solve these anxiety and panic attacks?” I could not see how to get out of the situation I was in or make a change.

You always say the line, which I love, “It’s like you’re inside the box, and the instructions are written on the outside,” and that really sums it up.

Gigi: I have watched you for about two years. We would get together on vacations and things like that, and you were so stressed and had to be at the computer for so many hours a day. You had no choice because you had deadlines. I watched you and watched you, and as we told you before, I couldn’t say anything because you were in your thing, and you wouldn’t have listened to me anyway. 

I think a couple of times we tried to talk about it, but again, you were so fixated and set on this being the way it was. I let it be until I finally saw the opportunity when we did go to that retreat in Costa Rica. I thought it through, and I saw I had an opportunity of three or four days to shift and take you into a different experience and have you look at what you really wanted because, from there, I knew we could start to see how to unwind this issue that felt like there was just no possibility.

Makena: It really does feel that way when you’re in that experience. Whoever is listening right now, it’s not to say that your problems aren’t real. They were very real. 

I was having anxiety, I had the deadlines, I had the business model that was set up in a certain way, and I was making great money. There was a lot working, but there was a lot not working for me too. 

Whatever you’re dealing with, it’s not to say that those problems aren’t real. It’s just that, in a way, it’s kind of like that line, “What you’ve done has gotten you to where you are.” 

You’re getting the results you’re getting because of the way you’ve done things up to this point. Do you remember the line?

Gigi: I know what you’re talking about, but I don’t remember the line. Both of us still go through that. It’s not like we’ve solved that. Now we know when we go down that rabbit hole, and we know how to approach it differently.

Makena: We see this when we coach people a lot. There’s this one way of looking at things and this one challenge or maybe multiple challenges that they’re dealing with. 

How do you take people outside of that and start to help them see, like you’re saying, a new challenge, a better challenge?

Gigi: You ask questions that have nothing to do with the problem, usually curious questions. 

For example, if you knew you couldn’t fail, what would you be doing right now? 

If you’re sitting there talking to me about how much work you have, and there’s no way you can get out of it, then for a moment, you go, “I’ve never thought about that.” 

So it creates curiosity because people go to something completely different. It takes them out of their heads and into their curiosity. By doing that and also continuing to ask questions around different topics related to where they want to go and what they want, even if somebody says to me, “I don’t know,” then I have a simple question: “If you did know, what would you do?” Usually, that takes people out. 

The questions are very powerful, and that’s part of being a coach—learning those questions and the timing to really talk to people in such a way that you allow them to step into a different reality. 

When we had the experience together in Costa Rica, that’s what I did with you. I had a longer time, which was three days, which was amazing because every time you would fall back into that pattern, I would distract you by walking on the beach, going swimming, drinking a margarita, or getting a massage. I kept shifting you out of that until you weren’t stuck in that habitual pattern. 

Not everybody’s going to do that, but just the fact of seeing what you want, what’s a bigger new challenge that is more exciting and more engaging than the problem. 

It didn’t solve your problem, but it gave you a different way to look at your problem. 

Because you hadn’t bought into the fact that there was no way it was going to work anymore, which is where you were a little bit, we were able to take you out and start to say, step by step, “How do we navigate this? How do we do something different here?” That was the process we went through for several months. 

It doesn’t mean your problem is going to be solved or you ignore your problem. It just means we’re going to take a different approach to it.

Makena: You have coached coaches or trained coaches for many years among a lot of other kinds of people that we work with. This is one of the skills that you would teach, right? That we taught in our coaching certifications and everything else. 

We do have a free guide that we’ll share with you all, which is our Top 10 Coaching Questions. 

Even if you’re not a coach and you’re listening to this, there are some really powerful questions in there that can open up a different line of thinking. They can start to open up your mind, as you’re saying, to not be in the habitual way of operating or focus on the problem, but starting to see new possibilities or new things that you want. 

We’ll put that in the show notes. The URL is wayofthemuse.com/questions, so you can download that as well. 

Is there anything else? When you teach a coach how to support someone? 

I think there’s a big piece of it. You can do the reflection questions yourself. Let’s say someone journals, and they do these reflection questions, maybe from the guide or something like that. 

I’ll just share that last night, I had an experience of sitting down with someone, and they were so curious. The way they asked questions and the way they listened, I started to see things in a different way. I have that experience with you all the time. People have that experience with us frequently. 

There’s something powerful about the space that someone else can hold with the right kind of listening. Would you say that’s true?

Gigi: Absolutely. We teach our coaches as well—sitting in the seat of the coach, which is in this place of asking questions in a very open way and waiting to see what comes, having no agenda for what the person should say, where they should go, or what they should do. 

It’s really tapping into your curiosity, being deeply interested in people. Some people have that naturally, but from my experience of over four decades of teaching, curiosity is a skill we have as children because we’re naturally born with it, but it goes away after a while because we get a little jaded in life. 

Practicing and learning that skill of curiosity and interest is important because when you do that, you allow people to really express themselves. You’re deeply interested, and that opens the space for people to really share.

Makena: I love the idea of bringing curiosity even to yourself. There’s that line, “Familiarity breeds contempt.” We think about that in relationships, but I think it’s also true for ourselves.

We think we know our lives, what we’re capable of, and our shortcomings, and so we’re in this fixed view. I think what we’re talking about here in terms of taking on a new challenge and going for what you want is sort of opening up the view, widening the lens, and going, “What else is possible here?”

Sometimes, our problems, especially if they’re interpersonal and involve other people or conflict, there can also be this addictiveness to it. People get a little caught up in that. Do you see that with people?

Gigi: I think we all have patterns, and when you take a left turn for a while, then we resort to those patterns. Often, in a dynamic with another person, a pattern starts to develop, and in that pattern, you get engaged. Then, being upset or being in a fight or having these issues becomes a distraction just because it’s habitual. 

That’s why asking the question and getting something outside of that that is engaging enough that you’ll shift your attention is a way of shifting it. 

Of course, the habit is to go back to that, so you have to really work at it. What you want has to be exciting enough that you will stay out of that pattern for a while. 

You had a guide. I assisted you in doing that because there were several times when I thought if I weren’t there, you would have fallen back in.

Makena: Oh, a hundred percent. A hundred percent.

Gigi: I think often if you have a guide, support, or a friend who’s really holding you to the line of “No, no, no, you said you’re going to do this.”

Makena: I think the friendship piece is interesting because, with interpersonal conflict or some of the challenges, we have this habitual way in our culture of people getting together and talking about their problems.

We get together with our friends, and of course, we need a place to vent sometimes. But sometimes, that’s the only thing we talk about. It opens up in a different way, which also starts to talk about what you really want. 

To give some examples would be helpful. What’s an example of someone you’ve worked with? We always change names and details and everything, but the types of scenarios that come up with people you’ve worked with when they are more focused on the challenge or the problems or the things that they’re struggling with, and then they shift, and they see something different.

Gigi: Sometimes clients go off, get distracted, and start creating distractions, a thousand different distractions, and get overwhelmed and then go down this hole of completely losing focus. 

I see this sometimes with women. It happens with men, too, but we’re predominantly working with women in our programs. They get so distracted and engaged that they completely forget about their business, or they’re not focusing on the right things.

Makena: Go ahead.

Gigi: Being aware of it, even though I give them feedback and they become aware, is learning how to catch that themselves then what are the tools to get back on track?

Makena: That needs a little more description. So, like, somebody is, you’re saying, building a business. There’s an entrepreneur going to build their business. You said they get distracted, or they create distractions. What does that mean?

A lot of times, personal stuff will come up. It’s not that you can’t address the personal things in your life, but sometimes there’s a pattern there. Anytime someone starts going for what they want in their business, for example, something comes up with their kids, or something comes up over here. 

Of course, if that happens, you have to address it. But we see them almost completely take their energy and attention off of their business and say, “I can’t focus on my business now.” 

There is a way of allowing the things in your life, dealing with the things in your life or addressing them if they need to be addressed, and then there’s also letting them completely pull you off and distract you. Is that what you’re saying?

Gigi: Yes. I also think I often see people getting distracted by their relationships. There’s an issue in their relationship, and relationships usually have maybe two issues, and those issues are over and over. They look different, but it’s the same issue underneath. People get engaged and a little addicted to it and keep on feeling like they’re going to be able to solve it. It’s that thing of if you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail. They just keep on going at it in different ways. 

But the truth is, I’ve shown women many times to get their attention off of that. Go to what you want, go to building your dreams, go to making your life work. Then, all of a sudden, that issue can be seen completely differently and approached differently. 

Especially if you’re an entrepreneurial woman, you’re building your business, and you get distracted constantly by your relationship. It takes you off your game in terms of being in your business and being with your clients, and that affects your income. 

If the issue is about income, because often it’s money or sex, then if you’re over here fighting with your partner instead of really focusing on how to grow, how to sustain, you’re going to feel so much more powerful when you do that, even though it’s tough and challenging.

Wherever you put your attention, there are going to be tough and challenging things, whether you put it in the relationship or on growing. It’s difficult to talk about, and it’s complex to do.

Makena: Another example could be even something like self-doubt. People have self-doubt when they’re growing their businesses or going for their bigger dreams. It’s great to address that. There are different things you can do, and we talk about this a lot. 

What we find a lot of the time is that people get fixated on the self-doubt, and they start cycling through trying to fix the self-doubt and get rid of it, and it becomes a distraction from taking the action to move their business forward. 

An interesting question for people to reflect on as you’re listening is: What are those problems that come up for you or that are currently in your life? 

Maybe some of them have been going on for a while, whether it’s in your relationship or other relationships in your life or self-doubt or whatever it might be. 

How much time and energy do you spend focused on this problem or caught up in this problem? What would happen if you freed that time and energy up? 

Even if you freed up 80% of it. Maybe 20% still needs to go there to handle whatever needs to be handled. 

But what if 80% of that time and energy got freed up, and you put that into going for what you want instead?

Gigi: That’s incredible. I did that early on in my career, my first business, because I was constantly being distracted, giving my partner a hard time all the time. Then I had this awakening and saw, “Oh my gosh, the amount of time I spend trying to argue with him. If I shift that to putting it into my business and putting it into things I want to do, what a shift.” 

I did it, and my life completely changed. I made so much more money, had so much more time, and had so much more fun. It was a big “aha” moment, a very big one. 

It ended up being the theme for my first book in Germany, “Would you rather be right, or would you rather be rich?” Rich in all areas, richness in your life. 

Before, I was just in a habit, a way of being in a relationship. When I cleaned that up, it was like a completely different life than I had lived.

Makena: If you’re not going for rich in a financial sense, it could be, “Would I rather be right or get what I want?”

Gigi: Go on that trip, or have more time with my children, or be happier.

Makena: That’s such a great way to think about it. I think that’s often the “aha” for people: “Wow, the amount of time and energy and attention I’m putting into this thing.” If I free that up, then what becomes possible? 

Another time, I want to share one other example because it’s a slightly different way of looking at this. Someone I did coaching with came in, and she was wanting to build her business. She came in with her plan, and actually, this happens a lot. I’m thinking of one person in particular, but now, a few others are jumping into my mind. 

She had a plan of how she thought she should grow her business, and it was a logical, linear progression of how you might grow your business. It was a good idea, something that she’d come up with. It was a great idea; nothing wrong with that. 

So we kind of mapped it all out, and we looked at that. Then I started asking other questions, and I said, “Okay, great.” I took her to the bigger picture. What did she want? What was the end result? How did she want to feel in her business? How did she want to be interacting with her clients? How did she want this aspect to be? 

When we did that, this completely other picture emerged. It wasn’t that she wasn’t necessarily—sometimes, when this happens with clients, the initial idea turns out not to be it. 

Sometimes, it’s still something they want to incorporate, but they go, “Oh my gosh, I’ve been so focused on this one little thing, but the truth is there’s this much bigger vision that I have, this much bigger game I want to play.” 

The light bulb goes on. What’s so cool about that, and this comes back to our work around aliveness, is you can see when it really hits and brings someone alive. It’s like the light bulb is literally the lights in their eyes, right? It’s like, “We got it. We landed on it.” 

That’s how it should be for any of these examples we’re giving. When you’re going for what you want, that’s in alignment with what you desire, with your aliveness. 

I love when we do that because so often I think when people feel a little stuck or stagnant, or it’s taking a long time to get to where they want to go, or they feel like they’re not making as much progress, it’s because they’re in the box with their thinking. 

When you can expand out and really see, then things start to move faster. What becomes possible really accelerates somehow.

Makena: I think that’s the main distinction for today. It feels theoretical. It’s not theoretical at all when we work with people, and we really get in there. 

But if it’s a new concept for you, something new that you’re looking at, then it might stretch your brain a little bit to go, “Wait a second, how does that work? Where is this showing up for me?” 

But as always, as we say, just be curious and see, “Is this showing up anywhere?” What do you want there? 

To support you with that, again, we do have that Top 10 Coaching Questions PDF. It’s a free download, and you can go to wayofthemuse.com/questions, and you can download that. It’s really, really popular, so I think you’ll really enjoy it. 

I think that’s really it for today. Anything else?

Gigi: Nothing else. Thank you so much for listening.

Makena: Thank you, and we’ll see you next time.

Gigi: See you next time.